By Yadira Betances
ybetances@eagletribune.com
May 31, 2009 12:40 am LAWRENCE — When School Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy was asked last month whether a student on a European field trip was left behind by a principal to find her way to Italy, Laboy said it never happened. His answer was only partly true. As was the story that a 16-year-old girl was abandoned when she didn't have the necessary visa to keep up with the group. After months of rumors of what happened to the student overseas, Lawrence High Junior Luisa Jimenez has come forward to talk about what happened to her on that February school vacation trip. A day before the trip, Jimenez found out she needed a visa to go, and that would take another two days to get. While the teenager did have her parents' permission to fly to Italy by herself to meet up with her group, her family is still outraged by how Dr. Terika Smith, the principal who led the European field trip, handled her situation. They are also outraged about Laboy's public denials to The Eagle-Tribune and on a local radio show about what happened to their daughter. Laboy said previously the student needed both a passport and visa at the airport and left briefly with an adult to retrieve it. They both returned and joined the group on a charter flight, Laboy said. The superintendent also made the same remarks on local Spanish radio. "I started to cry," said Jimenez, when she heard Laboy's statement. "I wondered why he was lying. He doesn't know all the things I went through to get there." Laboy is recuperating in the Dominican Republic from work-related stress and could not be reached. Smith also did not respond for comment. Assistant Superintendent Mary Lou Bergeron responded by e-mail, saying the family's version of events is wrong. "The parent made the decision to allow the student to travel to Italy to meet up with the group once the visa was obtained," she wrote. How it happened For years, Jimenez has been fascinated with Italy. She pored over photographs of the Colosseum, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Vatican. She has taken Italian for two years and said on a scale of one to 10, she is a 5 in proficiency. So when her class planned the seven-day trip last October, she was one of the first to sign up. She and her mother, Carmen Sanchez, attended every meeting about the study abroad program, and kept a list of all the documents they turned over to Smith: an application, a passport, a notarized letter from both parents giving her permission to go, medical information, a picture release form and a confirmation of completed payments. Not on the list was a travel visa. Jimenez says she learned from Smith one day before her trip that she needed the visa as well as a passport. Born in the Dominican Republic, Jimenez moved here when she was 9. She is a permanent resident, but not a citizen, therefore required a visa to travel. "I was so frustrated because I thought I wasn't going anymore," she said. "I was afraid that I would lose my money and all the work I'd done." The trip cost $2,300, which Jimenez paid for by selling raffle tickets for a laptop. The rest she received as a donation. When Smith told Jimenez she needed a visa, she and her mother quickly drove to the Italian embassy in Boston, where embassy officials told them they needed copies of Jimenez' birth certificate, a letter from her parents allowing her to travel and an itinerary of the trip. Although she had everything ready, she had to wait until Friday — a day after the rest of the group left — when the embassy's office was open again to get the actual visa. Bergeron admits visas were not on the list of required documents, because it's not a requirement for all students. She said Smith was asked at a couple of these meetings about the need for a visa for students who were not born in the United States, and she told students to check with their parents and the embassy/consulate to verify what they would need. All required documents were collected at a final meeting with students and parents, which Jimenez was late for, Bergeron said. "It was not until the day before the group was to travel that Ms. Jimenez went to Dr. Smith and told her that she needed a visa and had not gotten one yet," Bergeron wrote. Her classmates flew from Philadelphia International Airport bound for Rome on Feb. 12. After she got all the necessary papers, Jimenez left from the same airport, by herself, on Feb. 14. During the nine-hour transatlantic flight, Jimenez read "The Kite Runner," and listened to Spanish pop music on her iPod until she fell asleep. Meanwhile, her panicking family in Lawrence wasn't sure that she would make the connection and had no way to reach her. Her mother continuously called Smith's cell phone, but never got an answer. Bergeron refuted the charges, saying Smith kept her cell phone on the entire time and even made numerous calls to Sanchez. It was through these conversations that Smith learned Jimenez's mother decided to allow her daughter to travel alone and meet the group in Venice. Getting scared Jimenez, who said she has an adventurous spirit, at first took travelling alone in stride. "When I was in Philadelphia, Dr. Smith called me and gave me directions of how to get there (Italy)," she said. Jimenez said the principal never mentioned picking her up at the airport. Bergeron said Smith and the group waited in Rome as long as they could and then continued on with the planned itinerary, which Jimenez and her mother had. They knew about the planned travel from Rome to Florence and then to Venice, so Jimenez knew how to catch up with the group. Once she arrived in Rome, Jimenez took a 90-minute train ride to Termini. There, she had to wait an hour for the next train for Venice, which took five hours. Her ordeal did not end once she arrived in Venice. "When I got to Venice, that's when I really got scared," Jimenez said. "It was dark, and I didn't know where I was." She needed a water taxi and not knowing where to get one, she asked two police officers, who pointed her to one waiting. She arrived at the hotel 45 minutes later and finally met up with Smith and her classmates. "Dr. Smith gave me a hug and told me, 'Oh my God, I'm so glad you're here,'" Jimenez said. The teenager was tired after a long journey and upset that she had missed all but a few hours of visiting Italy. "This is why I wanted to go on the trip and I missed the whole thing," she said.
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